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Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Fields Of Barley...Vol. 8

Fields of Barley, Vol. 8

(If you want to read this from the beginning, Click the Stories, Short & Otherwise Link above)

Later that
same day, Mark ventured to the field next to their modest, but adequate
farmhouse to see the sunset and to think things over. Before he and his father
made the twelve-hour car trek from Washington State, Mark’s mother sat him down and
told him he would be spending the next year—maybe longer—living with Uncle Jack
and Aunt Louise.His mom explained how
some bad things had happened at daddy’s work and that this meant changes had to
be made. Mark wanted to ask questions of his mother, but fear held his tongue.
Even the tears rolling down his mother’s cheek failed to evoke more than a
remote stare from the boy. After the talk, he quietly went to his bedroom and
packed an entire childhood into two suitcases not knowing if he would ever see
his bedroom again.

Now the setting sun carried with it
the hopes of a child as the darkness matched a sense of dread slowly filling
the boy’s heart. The young child looked around, alone, unaware that two
onlookers experienced his fear and loneliness as the crisp wind brushed against
his face. The elder Mark looked at Anna-Lisa with a tear in his eye, vividly
remembering the solitude of that autumn evening.

“Why?” the
only question he asked. “As a boy, why was I sent here? Why did I have to leave
my mom and dad and come here? Years later I understood the events that lead me
here, but why did it have to happen in the first place?” Mark asked.

“You must
understand events that hurt must occur to everyone. These hurtful things could
be stopped, but they are not. They are allowed to continue for the benefit of
all. This is confusing to many, and especially to an eight-year old boy, but this
is the way it must be,” Anna-Lisa said in such a way that Mark knew she also
felt the pain and despair of this young child. “People have the ability to
choose and this most precious gift must forever remain. How they choose and
what they choose affect not only their own life, but also countless others.
These choices determine all life, all existence.”

In her
words Mark found comfort, but not enough to satisfy his deep yearning to
understand his life.

He needed more.

The scene
changed. The young boy in a field of wheat disappeared. A teenager sitting
among other students in a small classroom took his place. As before, emotions
rushed in as Mark found himself a teenager again, looking at his classmates.

“Mark, soon
you will understand why you were placed to live with your aunt and uncle. As
you can see, you are now sitting in a classroom at West Jefferson High School.
You’re older, and wiser, and more mature. You see a room full of people, some
you knew very well, others only generally. You may not believe it, but every
one of these people—as well as people you never met—had their lives forever
changed because of the decision made by your mother and father those many years
earlier. Some lives changed only slightly, but others…” Anna-Lisa looked at Mark.
“For others, the decisions you made affected their lives very much.”

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Who Am I?

Husband, Father, Writer, just your ordinary crime-fighting blogger, father of 4, husband of 1, owner of a dog, owned by 2 cats. I am a writer of the award winning short film, Wrinkles, and writer of the upcoming feature film, Edwin.